Full Circle
Back where it all started. There wasn’t much success had from our fall crop attempt, lack of attention and change in sun pattern made it pretty tough to get things going. Valuable lessons are about the only things we’re going to harvest this winter. All considered, not a bad first season. After looking back through the harvest journal here are the numbers:
For the fresh Herbs we grew approximately 65 pounds of usable product. Taking the prices from our current purveyors, this would have cost the restaurant roughly $766.50. Quite a showing for very little work when it comes to herb production.
For the Vegetables: We grew approximately 151 pounds of produce priced at just over $400.00. Much more work than the herbs and not quite the cost return I had expected. When it comes to the vegetables, you are not looking at very lucrative savings. The rewards here come from fresh flavors and the satisfaction of personal involvement. You can’t really put a price on the satisfaction of picking ripe tomatoes and okra every couple of days, or watching the family of birds that moved in over the summer produce numerous little birds as a result of having an accessible open food source and a safe place to live.
Take out the $150.00 that we spent on seeds, plants, supplies and growing we produced about $1000.00 worth of product for the restaurant this season at a mere 12% cost. Not bad production for 600 square foot corner of a parking lot. With more planning and better production out of our new beds, I’m pretty confident we can double the output with very little, if any, increase to cost.
Other things to note, we’ve procured a key to the greenhouse next to the garden so I should be able to get an early jump on seedlings so they are nice and strong by the spring. I managed to save plenty of okra and bronze fennel seeds to start next years plants. Aside from the tomatoes, they were probably our next strongest producers. Also, throughout the summer and continuing now through the winter we save all of the scrap oyster shells from the hotel in hopes of lining the walkways throughout the garden once there are enough. That will give me an excuse to get out there and play through the winter clearing out the sparse pea gravel that does a poor job of lining the walkways presently. Interesting as well: the building behind the garden has just been remodeled into a seven eleven. I’m curious to see how the smells of newly applied compost and fertilizer mingling with the aromas of fresh brewed coffee attract the VCU campus passerby. Laughably, we may have a civil dispute on our hands and this will almost certainly close the book on getting a bee colony started. Tough break.
With Thanksgiving now gone, the giant Christmas tree looms stoically in the lobby of the hotel in preparation for tonight’s “Grand Illumination”. This ought to bring a spike in business (mostly burger driven by my best guess) to the restaurant. I don’t imagine I’ll ever get much of a culinary charge out of the holiday restaurant business surge or burger sales for that matter, but its a small price to pay in the grand cycle to keep the doors open and ensure that I’m back out in the dirt come spring!
